


comes in bells, your servant

by adreadfulidea



Category: Mad Men
Genre: BDSM, F/M, Femdom, Masochism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 07:54:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7968553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreadfulidea/pseuds/adreadfulidea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stan Rizzo learns how to ask for what he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	comes in bells, your servant

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know, you guys.

 

 

 

**One.**

When Stan Rizzo was fourteen years old he found a stack of dirty postcards in a bathroom he was helping his father remodel.

That was the summer before his mother left. In the fall she would pack her suitcase and head for greener pastures and a whole new life. For months prior to her departure Jack slept on the couch and Stan did his best to avoid them both. He got a paper route so he had an excuse to leave early every morning. Afterwards he would chase rabbits through the field behind the high school on his bike, or stop by the corner store and try to convince someone older to buy him smokes or beer. He generally didn’t get either.

Most of his friends were off doing something else - camp, summer jobs, family vacations in Yellowstone or Florida. He spent a lot of time alone, but it wasn’t so bad. He carried a notebook around with him, some pencils, and started sketching the neighborhood. The Marnell girls lying around the community pool. Mr. Johnstone watering his roses. Dogs asleep in the heat or drinking from puddles.

His father found the sketchbook one morning. Stan hadn’t been trying to hide it or anything; there was nothing inside that Jack couldn’t be permitted to see. He flipped through the pages while he drank his coffee.

“You’re doin’ a lot of this, huh?” his father asked. He didn’t sound impressed. “Drawing?”

“Yeah,” said Stan, feeling suddenly resentful. He wished he’d filled the book with naked chicks or rude cartoons, just so he could be in trouble for a reason.

“Weren’t you gonna go be part-time down at the quarry? Your mother said something about it.”

Stan wondered when they’d started talking again, or how long it would last. “Changed my mind.”

Jack put the book down. “You need a job. This is kid stuff,” he said, and that was the end of Stan’s free time.

They were living in Maine at the time, Jack having been discharged from the Navy the year before. Small town called Harpshead along the coast. He made a pretty good living repairing boats - he’d picked up mechanics while serving. A couple weeks after Stan tossed his sketchbook out his father got hired on to fix up an old house. Consequently, so did his son. No one had lived in it since the early thirties.

It was outside of town, on the edge of the woods. Someone wanted it for a fishing cabin. They slept there while they were working on it. Like camping but shittier.

That was where Stan found the postcards, on his knees groping under the chipped bathroom cabinet for a nail he’d dropped. His fingers encountered a flat rectangle instead; he got a grip on the edge and pulled.

It was a long tin box. There had been a lock once but that was rusted through. Stan wiped his dusty hands on his jeans and cracked it open easily.

Inside there was a couple of silver dollars, a set of keys and a whole lot of French postcards. They were as old as everything else in the house, pictures of girls with bobbed, fuzzy hair wearing nothing but long strings of beads around their necks. The first few were normal.

But after that -

Stan took a postcard out of the box. There was a man and a woman on this one, naked together, but they weren’t having sex. They were doing something way weirder.

She was sitting in a chair, holding a thin rod up in the air like she was posed to bring it whistling down. Stan couldn’t tell what it was - a crop, like for horses? Or a switch, the kind they used to smack kids with in the olden days?

And the guy - he was lying across her lap. Kind of awkwardly, because he was taller than she was. His hands were tied together with strips of cloth, his face turned away from the camera. All that could be seen was the back of his head; his hair cut short and neat, parted on the side. Even in the grainy black and white the welts across his ass and thighs were visible. If the picture was in color they would have been bright pink. Impossible to miss. Like tiger stripes.

Stan felt his face go hot.

He couldn’t stop looking at it. It wasn’t regular porn, the kind you could share with your buddies or pass around after school. No friendly shirtless girl with red lips directing a smile at the viewer. There was nothing _friendly_ about this at all.

The next one was a different couple; the man was bent over the foot of a bed and she stood behind him. Spanking him, again, but this time with the flat of one hand. The other was clenched in his hair, pulling his head back. The cheeks of his ass were flushed dark.

Looking at the pictures gave him an ache in his chest, one he couldn’t explain. As if there was a hook in him somewhere, reeling him forward.

“What the hell is that?” his father asked.

Stan went cold all over and dropped the tin to the floor with a clatter. The pictures and coins scattered across the dirty floor. “They’re not mine,” he said, quickly, praying he would be believed. “I found them here, a minute ago.”

Jack picked a postcard up. A bemused line appeared between his eyebrows. An eternity later he shook his head. “People are crazy,” he said. “Well, I guess it takes all sorts.”

He scooped the rest of them up from the floor and tossed them into the garbage can by the door. The silver dollars he left behind, which Stan took as an indication that they were up for grabs. He put the money in his pocket and went back to trying to find his lost nail. He didn’t let himself acknowledge the trash, or what was in there. His fingers kept itching to retrieve the postcards all the same.

 

 

Stan didn’t spend any of his money from fixing up the house. He put it in a sock, in the bottom of his underwear drawer, and decided to leave it there until he could open a bank account. There were other jobs he could get, too - he stole the classifieds from the paper and started looking through them one morning at breakfast.

Jack took the rest of the paper and sat down at the table. Stan’s mother was frying something on the stovetop, and they were doing that thing where they pretended they didn’t see each other even though they were in the same room.

“Industrious, are you?” Jack asked, but he looked pleased. He wasn’t going to be in a minute or two.

“I’m saving up money,” Stan said. He kept his eyes on the want ads. “I’m gonna apply to art school when the time comes.”

“What?” Jacked asked, sharply. “I thought you were thinking about the Marines?”

Stan _had_ said that, before, but that was because he knew what Jack wanted. “He’s allowed to change his mind,” said Charlene, from the stove. She scraped eggs out of the pan onto a plate. It was the first time she had spoken to her husband directly in days.

“Still four years away,” said Jack. “He could change it again.”

“It’s a woman’s prerogative,” said Stan, and Charlene laughed. Jack didn’t. The meal progressed under the kind of stony silence everyone had become accustomed to.

 

 

They got into a fight about it, later. He heard them through the wall while he was trying to sleep.

 

 

Stan got a pretty good side business going on, once he learned how to draw tits properly. He drew other stuff, too - posters and cartoons for the school paper and pictures for his friends. But that was what brought in the cash. Stan Rizzo, amateur pornographer. It also had the side-effect of making him pretty popular, even though he’d dropped baseball and spent most of his time in the back of their bargain-basement art class trying to make his copy of the Mona Lisa look right.

“Doesn’t it bother you that guys are jerking off over this?” the pitcher on his former baseball team asked, one July morning when they were hanging out behind the gym and drinking because Stan didn’t have a shift and there was nothing else to do. He was looking through Stan’s secret sketchbook, the one he kept hidden under a broken floorboard in his bedroom.

“No,” said Stan. He worried about Jack finding the book and kicking him out or some similar overreaction. He worried that his father wasn’t going to float him any money for college, even though he’d already said he would. Stan was seventeen, and his mother was long gone. It was just the two of them now. But he didn’t worry about other guys jerking off over his stupid pin-ups. Maybe he should have. “The point is to get out of this shit town, and they’re willing to pay. I don’t care what they’re doing with it.”

He’d read John Steinbeck and Betty Smith and Theodore Dreiser. There was a whole world out there, and he was going to see it.

“Ha,” said Wayne, and grinned. He had gappy teeth, the kind that looked like military headstones all lined up. “You ever pull one out yourself?”

His pictures were all typical nudes, girls with bullet-breasts bending over with their skirts blowing up and no underwear on. Or vacuuming the house in a shortie apron and only that. Soft and pretty and just the way everyone liked them.

(Except him.)

Stan smirked. “Who wouldn’t?” he said. The lie stuck in his throat but he swallowed it down. Which he was getting good at.

 

 

He _did_ try to research his - condition, whatever the fuck it was, once, in the public library. It was probably some kind of brain issue, right? And there were shrinks all over the place these days. He could be fixed. No big deal.

Martha Kovacs came up behind him and snuck a glance over his shoulder. “Didn’t know you could read, Rizzo.”

He slammed _Stedman’s Medical Dictionary_ shut at ‘Sacralgia’. “The library hired an illiterate like you, I don’t see why _I_ wouldn’t be welcome. At least I know the alphabet.”

Her fingers jabbed him in the back of the head. “What does ‘O’ come after? No looking it up.”

Martha wasn’t what you’d call beautiful. She was tall and flat-chested and had so many freckles that it was kind of strange. Her father was the town drunk and she swore all the time, the way no other girl he’d met did. The Kovacs house was a mess - he’d seen it, when they were working on some project together and she had to stop by to get an item she forgot. She had never been asked to a dance. None of which stopped Stan from thinking about the way the muscles in her long calves flexed when she played field hockey, or imagining them wrapped around him.

People said she would get down on her knees for a dollar, but Stan didn’t believe them. He wished they would cut it out with the rumours. She must have heard all the same ones he did.

“After ‘C’,” he said, “for cow.”

She pinched his ear as she went past, popping her gum and the wheels of her book cart squeaking. “How about ‘A’,” she said, “for asshole?”

 

 

For Stan’s birthday, right before school started up again, Wayne borrowed his older brother’s car and they headed for Portland. Stan drove with all the windows down and the radio turned up. The car was a deathtrap that could break down at any moment and they had about five dollars between them, but getting out of Harpshead felt so good that it didn’t matter.

They went a waterfront bar that was like a lot of other waterfront bars, except this one was lazy about asking for ID. Stan looked slightly older than he was, but Wayne didn’t - they sat nervously at a table in the corner, waiting for the waitress to notice and throw them out. She never did.

There was a woman sitting at the bar. She was older, maybe mid-thirties, and had wavy dyed-black hair. Her lipstick was dark red and her skirt pulled tight across her full hips. When they came in - trying so hard to look casual that it made their palms sweat - she had peered at them from under her bangs and quirked an eyebrow. After the waitress left she looked Stan up and down, blatantly.

“Whoa,” said Wayne, goggle-eyed. “She just -”

“Shut up,” hissed Stan, and elbowed him in the side. “You’ll ruin it.”

It took him twenty minutes to work up the courage to approach her. He leaned against the bar and considered a number of possible lines. In the end he decided to be direct.

“Buy you a drink?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” she said, coolly. There was already a whiskey sour in front of her.

“Oh,” he said, disappointed. “Okay, sorry -”

“But I wouldn’t mind buying you one,” she said, and beckoned the bartender over. She got him a scotch on the rocks that he pretended to like, and he took the stool next to her. If Wayne came over and interrupted Stan was going to kill him.

“Come here often?” he asked.

“Often enough,” she said, smooth and amused. Her voice was so smoky you could get lost in it. Commanding, Stan thought, and felt the skin on the back of his neck tingle. “You?”

“New in town,” he said, because it paid to be a mysterious drifter in situations like these. “I move around a lot.”

She opened the purse that was sitting on the bar next to her and removed a pack of cigarettes. Pall Malls, the ones in the orange box. “For what?” she asked.

“Work,” he said.

“What do you do?”

“I’m - I really shouldn’t say,” he said, and ducked in closer. “It’s for the military.”

“Oh,” she said, “the _military_. Well, that is something.” Though her face remained entirely serious, he got the feeling she was laughing at him somehow. “I imagine you’re permitted to tell us civilians your name. Or is that classified as well?”

“Stan,” he said. “My name is Stan.”

“Pleased to meet you,” she said, and placed a cigarette between her lips. “Have you got a light, Stan?”

He had a zippo in his pocket, thank god. It used to belong to his father, and had _non sibi sed patriae_ engraved on the side. She cupped her hands around his when he held it up for her to use. Her fingers were slim, her nails long. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

“My name is Judith,” she said. “I don’t work for the military, and I don’t move around a lot. At least, not anymore.”

“That last part sounds interesting,” he said. “Is there a story there I should know about?”

“What, spill all my secrets?” she asked. “You’ll have to work harder to get them out of me than that.” And she smiled, afterwards, wide and crimson and carnivorous.

 

 

Judith ordered them a second round, and they hadn’t reached the bottoms of their glasses before she put her hand on his thigh.

She didn’t publicly grope him or anything. It was more subtle than all that. Her fingers traced the inside seam of his pants. He could feel the tips of her painted nails through the thin fabric, the heat of her skin; he twitched inside his underwear. He was getting hard, and if she looked she was going to be able to tell.

But she didn’t look. She sat on her bar stool with her legs crossed, sipping her drink. Stan took a desperate, too-enthusiastic gulp of his. It burned the inside of his throat.

Did he want her to see?

“You seem nervous,” she said.

“Me?” he scoffed. “No.”

“Oh,” she said, her inflection mild. She set her glass down. “I was going to ask if you wanted to go someplace quieter. But if you aren’t interested -”

“ _Yes_ ,” he said, so fast that he overtook the end of her sentence. He tried to recover. “I mean, where to?”

“The bar has a room upstairs,” she said. There was no mistaking what invitation she was extending.

Stan had never gone all the way. He hadn’t done much at all - kissed a few girls, gotten his hand up a few skirts. And then gotten it slapped away, once she’d had enough. That was how the game was played. But Judith wasn’t a girl. She was a woman, and she knew what she wanted.

“How much is it?’ he asked. His blood hummed with mingled terror and arousal. He couldn’t believe -

“I’ll pay,” she said, and slid off the bar stool. She handed the bartender some money and indicated that Stan should follow her.

He scanned the room once before he left. Wayne was over by the pinball machine with a group of new friends. They were cracking up, feeding the game coins. He would be fine.

The walk up the stairs took a long time. Stan looked at the small of Judith’s back, the place where her blouse met her skirt. He wanted to touch the curve where the fabric bunched up as she moved.

The room wasn’t anything special. It had a bed, a side table and a bathroom. No pictures on the walls. As long as there was a flat surface Stan would be okay. He shut the door and Judith turned on the light.

She took off her shoes and her earrings, dropping the latter next to the base of the lamp. Without heels on she wasn’t very tall. She also opened her purse and took out a prophylactic that she deposited on the nightstand.

He grinned at her and crossed the floor to put his hands on her waist. “You’re _tiny_ -”

She put a restraining hand on his chest. “Hold on.”

“Uh,” he said. His eyebrows came together in confusion. “Don’t I get to kiss you?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Once you’ve earned it. Undress first. I want to see what I’m working with.”

A normal man would have walked out right then, being rudely told what to do by some woman he didn’t even know. Stan felt rooted to the spot. He was dizzy with want and knew that his face was flushing. Embarrassing. Needy.

“Clock’s ticking,” she said, and tapped her watch.

He sucked in a breath. “Jesus,” he said, and started pulling his clothes off. He was fully hard, now, heavy and obvious between his legs. No one had ever seen him naked before, not outside of a doctor’s office or the locker room.

Judith watched him with her thumbnail between her teeth. She looked, he flattered himself, pretty pleased.

“Not bad,” she conceded, and slipped the buttons of her blouse open. She wore a silk slip underneath, edged in lace.

He reached for her and she whacked his hand down.

“Do I need to clearer? You have to wait.”

“But -”

“ _Stan_ ,” she said. “Don’t make me put you on your knees.”

A throb of arousal went through him, so powerful that he had to close his eyes against it. He could imagine himself doing exactly that all too easily. Pressing his mouth to her soft thighs or between them. Maybe she would guide him, her hands in his hair. Or yank him around by it -

“You like that?” she asked, and there was the humour he’d noticed earlier again, her dark eyes warming. She’d taken off her blouse and skirt when he wasn’t looking and stood there in her slip and stockings. The slip was peach and her truly fantastic tits swelled above the neckline.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

She slid her hands under her negligee and tugged her panties down. He caught a glimpse of pale skin and softly curling hair. He may have - he may have made a sound -

Judith laughed. “Get on the bed,” she instructed.

She kissed him once he did, cupping his face with surprising gentleness. He squeezed her ass.

“You -” she said, and ran her nails down his back in revenge.

“ _God_ ,” he choked out, and his hips lifted off the bed of their own accord. Out of control already. Her nails left faintly red marks on his skin. A streak of sensation that wasn’t quite pain.

“Hmm,” she said, with a terrifying thoughtfulness. “Turn over. Put your hands on the headboard.”

And he - he did it, automatically. Like he was following an order. Yes ma’am, _of course_ ma’am. His hips pumped against the sheets a couple of times. Fuck, he couldn’t help himself. His cock throbbed like he’d been holding off for hours.

“Pity I don’t have any rope,” she said, “but this will have to do.”

“Don’t say that,” he begged.

She straddled him, sitting astride his ass. It pushed his hips down, increasing the friction. He swore, and then whimpered. “You look absolutely obscene,” she said. “Like something in the back of a dirty magazine.”

And she scratched him again, harder this time. Again and again, until his back and shoulders were covered with mottled pink. He lay as still as he could, panting, and let her do what she wanted. What _he_ wanted.

“More,” he said, as soon as she stopped. “Please?”

“My goodness,” she said. “Aren’t you an unexpected treat.”

He didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t want to discuss _anything_ , he only -

Stan pushed his face into the pillows. He waited to see what she would do. His hair was falling into his eyes but he didn’t dare move to brush it back.

She bit him, precise and sharp, at the top of his hip. And once more, further up along his ribs -

He jerked up with a frantic whine. It hurt and felt impossibly good at the same time. Her weight held him down, and he was dripping into the blankets, rutting through his own mess. He couldn’t stop, he was pleading, pleading for - for -

She got him on his back and put the rubber on him. He kissed her while she did it, had to take a breather when she sank down on him with a moan and a quiver in her legs. Warmer and wetter than he could have guessed. Fuck, he was _inside_ her. He was inside -

He thrust in, once, and came. It was incredible, and he immediately wanted to die.

Judith froze. “Oh,” was all she said.

Stan had been holding on to her hips. He let them go and covered his face instead. “Shit,” he said. “ _Shit_.”

“Have you not done this before?” she asked.

“No,” he mumbled. Why not? There was no hiding. His humiliation was complete.

“Why on earth didn’t you _say_ ,” she said, and sounded horrified. “I would have been much more careful!”

“I didn’t want careful,” he said.

Judith wrapped her fingers around his wrists, taking his hands away from his eyes. She gave him a considering look. “Neither do I,” she said, and pinned his arms to the mattress.

She sat on his face and held him down the whole time. He ate her out, licking deep, while she rocked against his mouth. And she let him know when she liked what he was doing - grinding down, panting, saying, “Yes, yes - again.” Not once did she let him loose - he couldn’t use his hands, couldn’t be distracted by the needs of his own body (he was getting hard all over again, untouched). He chased after her taste when she shifted her weight. He was going to _smell_ like her. His chin was soaked -

“ _God_ ,” Judith said, “god, _uh_ -”

She came with a single soft exhalation, clenching up. As she unraveled her grip loosened and she fell back against his chest.

Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes half closed with satisfaction. He could see a muscle jump in her inner thigh.

“Not bad for an amateur, huh?” he asked, smug. Hey, he had reason to be proud of himself.

“What the hell,” she said, and climbed back on. Her hands grasped his hair tight and made his scalp sting. “One more time.”

 

 

Stan woke all at once. In the second between sleep and consciousness he was only aware that he was in a strange bed next to a strange woman. And then the previous night came crashing down on him.

He stirred, gingerly, and peeked over the mound of blankets at Judith. She was sleeping, a series of soft curves. Her face was smooth and tranquil. He didn’t wake her up.

What he did instead was go in the bathroom and look himself over in the mirror. He had scratches all over his back and if they weren’t that bad then they were still there. The bruises - two of them, from the pressure of her teeth - looked worse in the morning than they had at night. He pressed his fingers to one of them and winced at the jolt it gave him.

He should have gone to a party. A party with crappy beer and girls his own age, where the trouble he could get himself into was limited. What the hell had he been thinking?

Stan picked his way across the floor outside and got back into his clothes. He made sure he had his wallet, the car keys, anything he’d brought with him. When he closed the door behind him it was like he believed it was made of glass.

Wayne was in the parking lot, asleep in the backseat of the car with his mouth hanging open. Stan shook him until he elbowed him off with a hungover grunt.

“What?” he complained.

“We have to leave,” said Stan. “Right now.”

Wayne startled. He scoured the area around them in a panic. “Why? Did she rob you?”

“No,” Stan snapped. “Get going, and stop asking questions!” He tossed the keys at him and stomped over to the passenger side door. Wayne was fairly easy to push around, which was one of the reasons Stan hung out with him.

“But why am I driving?” Wayne asked. He looked with bewilderment at the keys cupped in his hands. “You drove us up -”

“ _Now_ , Wayne!”

“Fine!” Wayne climbed over the seat, into the front of the car and jammed the keys into the ignition. “Don’t tell me what’s going on. I don’t care.”

Stan remained as silent as possible on the way home. He didn’t want to talk, he didn’t want to remember anything that had happened. He didn’t want to be able to feel the welts on his back every time he leaned against his seat. Every time the car hit a bump.

And he didn’t want to be half-hard, aching from how sore he was, how used.

 

 

“What’s your problem lately?” Martha asked. She was reshelving atlases and encyclopedias in the reference section. She’d gone to the beach with her cousins a couple weeks before classes started and there were still pale tan lines across her shoulders from her swimsuit. It was like she was carrying the last bits of summer around with her. Fall was coming in quick.

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Stan said.

She lined up some books on the shelf. “You’re always in here. Did quitting baseball give you that much free time?”

“ _You’re_ always here.”

“Uh, yeah,” she said. “Because it’s my job. They pay me - real money and everything.” And Stan felt like an idiot.

“I’m studying,” he said.

“You’re drawing,” she pointed out. “That’s not studying.”

“Yes, because I’m gonna go to _art_ school,” he said. Not that he’d been accepted yet. But he would be. He would.

“Really?” she said, perking up. “I’m applying for early acceptance to Princeton, did I tell you that?”

“How the hell are you going to pay for Princeton?”

He didn’t mean anything by it, but her face went ruddy. It made her freckles seem blotchy and harsh. “Scholarships,” she said, coldly, one hand on her hip. He hadn’t noticed before, but she was starting to look really grown up, like her height and angles were reforming into a smoother, less gawky image. She’d gotten a new haircut, too, a short one that framed her face. It was nice.

Stan looked down at the scribbles in his sketchbook. “My Dad’s helping me out. He doesn’t like the idea, but not enough to stop me from going.”

“Well,” said Martha. “That’s good, isn’t it?” She examined his drawings; he even let her flip a few pages. “You’re pretty good, Rizzo.”

“Thanks.” The moment was awkward and entirely too sincere, which wasn’t how they talked to each other. He wished she would make a joke, or that he could think of one.

Instead she made everything worse. “Studying,” she said. “Huh. You know, I thought maybe you had a crush on me.”

She gave him a look out of the corner of her eye. Stan knew what it meant. He’d seen it before, with Judith. His heart rate picked up and he could feel a familiar bloom of heat across his skin. And then he thought about what the other guys would say, how they’d rib him in the locker room.

“Why would I?” he asked, quick and snappy. He regretted the words the second they left his mouth. But by then it was far too late.

Martha tossed a book onto her her cart and turned on her heel. She moved so fast the rickety old wheels squealed. “Wait,” said Stan, and grabbed at her arm. “Martha, wait -”

She pulled away from him roughly. Her eyes were bright and wet. “Don’t _touch_ me!”

“It was a joke,” he said. “I was kidding. Jesus, can’t you take a joke?”

“You fu -” She shook her head, balled up her fists at her sides. “You know what? Nothing you say matters. I’m going to get into Princeton, and I’m never going to come back to Harpshead. And I’ll never, ever have to look at another prick like you ever again.”

The librarian had come out from wherever she had secreted herself. “Martha, _language_ ,” she scolded, in the tone of someone who had to say so a lot. Immediately after which she turned on Stan. “Stan Rizzo, what did you do to provoke her? Do I need to talk to your father?”

“No,” said Martha. “Stan was just leaving.”

 

 

By the time Stan got to the top of the steps that lead to the lighthouse he was out of breath. It was cold, windy and starting to rain. He was supposed to be home, but it wasn’t like his father had dinner waiting on the table. They ate out of cans and boxes.

Stan tried to light a cigarette, but the wind blew it out. Then the lighter refused to spark. He threw it on the ground in disgust.

“One more year,” he said to himself, and rubbed his hands together to warm them. “Only one more.”

 

 

**Two**.

The first time he saw Manhattan had nothing to do with Madison Avenue, and it wasn’t because he was living there. He was a grunt in the art department of some hole-in-the-wall agency in Hoboken, drawing up coupons for half-price shoes and cheap toilet paper. Every couple of weeks he sent a stupid cartoon to a men’s magazine and got a rejection in return, but that was the extent of his professional achievement. Then his mother got in contact with him.

She sent him a letter. He thought it must have been forwarded from somewhere else; an old job, a childhood friend he was still in contact with. No way in hell did she call Jack. In it she said a lot of things, but primary among them was that she wanted to meet with him.

He thought about not going. He thought about throwing the letter out. He thought about standing her up, because she wouldn’t be able to blame anyone but herself.

Except he suspected she already was; that it was the weight of regret that was pulling her towards him now, making her reach out for what could have been a painful dismissal. So he went, because if he didn’t he would always wonder.

She was living in the Meatpacking District in an apartment with yellowing wallpaper and a dripping sink. There were heavy lines around her eyes and mouth, but she wore a nice dress. She worked in a department store, she told him, and got most of her clothes on discount.

He didn’t ask her any hard questions. They sat at her kitchen table and talked about safe subjects until she said, all of a sudden, “You grew so much. You’re taller than me now.” And her face crumpled.

Stan felt terrible but also irritated. He didn’t know how to comfort her or if he wanted to. “Mom, come on -” he started, but she interrupted him.

“No,” she said, wiping her eyes with the palm of her hand. “I got overwhelmed, it isn’t your fault. I want you to know - Stan, I was miserable with your father, miserable where I was -”

“That’s not my problem,” said Stan, and he didn’t want to hear it because Jack had a ton of flaws but he was also the one who had stayed. “What do you want me to say -”

“No,” she said again, and put her hand on his arm. “No, listen to me - because I felt like I was stuck. Because I _was_ stuck. But you don’t have to be, okay? You don’t have to be.”

 

 

**Three.**

“He wants to make aliyah,” said Ginsberg. He had his hands buried inside his pockets because he didn’t have gloves and wouldn’t let Stan buy him some. There wasn’t much money for anything these days - he’d spent most of his savings on the hospital. And god forbid he accept any charity. Stan had to trick him into accepting gifts by claiming he’d gotten them for free.

Maybe if he said Peggy knitted the gloves - but no. No one would believe a lie that big.

The snow was still falling, crunching under their feet. Out on the road the cars hadn’t had a chance to destroy it yet; the scene looked like a Christmas movie. “He what?” Stan asked.

“He wants to go to Israel,” said Ginsberg. “Like he thinks it was the city that made me sick.”

“Do you want to?” Stan asked. He couldn’t picture Ginsberg anywhere but New York. Certainly not in the desert. He hated the heat and didn’t mind letting everyone know.

“What do you think?”

“Then let him know,” said Stan, promptly. “What was it your doctor said -”

“I wish I didn’t tell you that.”

“ - you’re supposed to address your feelings when they happen, and not let everything build up.”

“I do,” said Ginsberg, grumpily, and no one could ever have accused him of keeping his cards close to his chest. But it was different with his father. Morris was probably the only person he worried about disappointing.

Well. Maybe not the _only_ one.

They stood outside the building for a few minutes. Neither of them spoke, and Ginsberg kept looking up at the windows with wide, searching eyes. Snowflakes were collecting in his hair.

Stan nudged him. “You ready?”

“Me?” Ginsberg asked. “What about _her_?”

“You let me worry about her,” said Stan. He might not have been so confident, but he hadn’t pushed Peggy in any way. And she never did anything before she was good and ready. Ginsberg he wasn’t as sure of. He’d already cancelled twice, and seemed like he was considering it again.

Ginsberg knocked the snow off his boots. He let out a long sigh. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Let’s go in.”

A blast of warmth hit them when they opened up the apartment door. Stan could smell tomato sauce and cheese. Peggy had thought about cooking something, changed her mind, found a recipe, and then changed her mind again. Finally Stan said, “Jesus Christ, will you just order pizza” and she did.

“Hi,” she said. To Ginsberg, not to him.

“Uh.” Ginsberg’s hands came out of his pockets but he didn’t know what to do with them. They twitched at his sides in anticipation of some unformed gesture. “Hi. How - how have you been?”

“Good,” she said. “Stan and I just finished remodelling the kitchen. So that’s nice, I guess.” She looked down at the pizza box on the table in front of her. “Not that I used it.”

“Ha,” said Ginsberg. “Yeah. So how’s work?”

They both froze.

“Well -”

“No, nevermind -”

“It’s okay, it’s - did you hear about the merger -”

“I don’t need to know -”

Shit. It was worse than he thought. “So is anyone else hungry?” Stan said, loudly. “Peggy, you need some plates?”

“Yes,” she said, with obvious relief. “Get me some?”

He set the table and Peggy dished out the food. “Take off your coat first,” he said when Ginsberg tried to sit down still dressed for outside. “Stay awhile.”

“Right,” said Ginsberg, and lingered at the hall closet for long enough that Stan knew he was talking himself into coming back in. But he _did_ come back in, and he sat at the table and thanked them for inviting him.

“No big deal,” Peggy said. “Um. I got cheese pizza for you, because I wasn’t sure if you were allowed meat and dairy together or not.”

He took the plate she was handing him. “I don’t keep kosher, usually,” he said. “But it’s nice that you thought of it.”

Peggy wiped her hands on a piece of paper towel. “Oh,” she said, with a frown. “Then why won’t you eat bacon?”

Ginsberg shrugged. “A guy’s gotta have some limits,” he said. “Doesn’t he?”

Peggy’s shoulders relaxed. Her face changed, too, softening, the stress lines on her forehead disappearing - and she laughed. It was so much like old times that Stan could only watch them and feel thankful.

 

 

Stan put his watch on the nightstand and got under the covers. Peggy was already in bed, the blankets pulled up to her nose.

“I told you everything would work out, did I?” he said.

She grunted at him and rolled over.

“I did,” he said, poking her in the side. “Peggy. Peggy. I was right - say I’m right.” And he kept at it until she whacked him with a pillow.

 

 

Once, after sex, Peggy asked him a question. She was sprawled across his chest, half asleep and beautifully flushed still; it made him think of rose petals and silk and other soft things. He brushed a few strands of hair off her cheek and she smiled up at him.

“Hey,” she said, propping herself up on her elbows. “is there anything special you want?”

“Right now?” he asked. “I could use a beer. Wanna get me a beer?”

“No, I’m being serious. I mean for sex. Something I’m not doing, or - you _know_.” And she laughed, kind of nervous, like she was trying to pretend it was no big deal no matter what the answer was. But it would be. It always was.

He had asked for what he wanted, before. Not from Peggy but from Elaine. Too soon in the relationship but he didn’t think he would have gotten a different outcome even if he had waited for a better time. She had said no. Not in a disgusted way, or even judgemental - but firmly. “I can’t do that to you, honey,” she’d said, with a shake of her head. “It’s not in me to hurt you. We don’t really need to, do we?” And she had treated him with this sweet concern, like she was worried that there might be something a little bit wrong with him.

Being with someone he loved was enough. It didn’t matter. He was fine.

Stan smoothed a hand down Peggy’s back. “Nah,” he said. “I just want you, baby.”

But Peggy gave him this look, this sharp and strange look, like she saw right through it. Like she didn’t believe him.

 

 

The phone rang at three in the morning. It was on Peggy’s side of the bed so she got there first, fumbling at the receiver and knocking the whole apparatus sideways in the dark. “Hello?” she said, and sat straight up in bed.

Stan turned the lamp on. She had her hand over the mouthpiece. “What? What’s going on?”

“It’s your Dad,” she whispered.

“Well,” Jack said when Stan put the phone to his ear, sounding like he was complaining about raccoons getting into the cellar again or his truck breaking down, “I’m in the goddamned hospital.”

“You - _how_?” Stan asked, thinking cancer, heart attack, a stroke. He sat up too, jostling against Peggy.

“Fell down and broke my ankle,” said Jack. He paused for a minute. “And a couple of ribs, they think. Had to drive myself in - we had a big storm and it knocked the phone lines out for a bit. That’s why I fell; the steps were wet.”

“For fuck’s sake, Dad,” Stan said. “I told you not to move so far out in the boonies.” Jack had been living on an acreage in Colorado for the last few years. He liked the landscape and not having to make nice with the people next door.

“Don’t swear at me, Stanley. Accidents happen to everyone.”

“What are you going to do?” Stan asked. “You got anyone to drive you back home or look in on you? A neighbor or somebody?”

“Don’t really have any,” said Jack. “I brought myself here, I can get back home again. I’m not some kind of invalid.”

No, he was only sixty-nine years old with a bunch of broken bones. God, why couldn’t his father make anything easy. “I’ll come out,” said Stan. “I’ll stay until you can get around better.”

“Go out where?” asked Peggy. “What’s happening?”

“He -” said Stan, but then Jack was talking again.

“You never liked living in the country,” he said. “You sure you wanna come all the way out here?”

“It’s not forever,” said Stan. “Only until you get back on your feet. Literally.”

His father sniffed. “Well. I’m sure you know your own mind. When can I expect you?”

“Can the hospital keep you for a couple more days?”

“Presumably. Unless they ship me off to the old folks home before you get here.” It was a joke, but there was an uncomfortable bluntness in Jack’s tone. He prided himself on his independence more than anything, and he was getting older every day.

“Call me if anything changes,” Stan said. “You hear me, Dad? I mean it.”

Jack was all business again. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I’ll see you soon. Thank god the house is in order.”

“Because I would have judged you if it wasn’t,” said Stan. He’d only been up there a couple of times, and not for long. Jack wasn’t a sociable man. Their lives didn’t have much in common, and there were no grandchildren to tie them together. And if he felt guilty about that, well - Jack had never come to New York, either. “Goodbye. Don’t fall again before I get there.”

Peggy got out of bed and left the room. She came back in a minute later with two glasses of water and gave him one. “So you’re going to Colorado?”

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Apparently. I’m not sure for how long. He’s in the hospital with a broken ankle.”

“Hmm,” she said, and directed a considering look his way.

“What?”

“I don’t think you should go alone.”

“Are you saying you want to meet my father?” Stan asked. “Right now? Because he won’t be in a good mood.”

“No,” she said. “I think you should take Michael with you.”

Stan settled back against the headboard. He couldn’t tell what she was driving at. “Okay. Why?”

She pulled the blankets back and sat next to him. “He makes you laugh, and your father stresses you out.”

“He doesn’t stress me out.”

“Really?” she said. “You look tense already. Besides, you don’t like flying. Won’t it better to have someone you know sitting in the next seat?”

It had been a year since he saw Jack last. The first thing he’d done upon getting home was needlessly pick a fight with Peggy. Which was usually her territory, so she might have a point in her psychological examination. “Ginsberg, huh?”

“He’ll distract you.”

“He can’t afford it,” Stan said. “You know that, right?”

“I’ll pay.” When he raised an eyebrow at her she shrugged. “Michael won’t say no if it’s coming from me. Not if I say he should go. He’d feel too guilty.”

Stan whistled. “Miss _Olsen_. That’s downright manipulative.”

She slid down the bed, under the sheets, and closed her eyes. “I did work for Don for about a million years. I learned a thing or two.”

Stan took that as a cue to turn the lamp off. There was springtime rain beating against the windows outside, washing away the last of the snow. He listened to it fall and tried to get back to sleep.

 

 

Stan and Ginsberg flew to Boulder and drove the rest of the way in a rental. Jack was dressed and ready to go with typical military promptness by the time they got there; he’d never been late a day in his life and had probably been waiting since six that morning. One of the nurses had loaded him into a wheelchair.

“What?” he said, annoyed, when Stan looked at him.

“I’m enjoying being able to push you around for a change,” Stan said.

“Don’t think I won’t get out of this thing and kick your ass,” Jack said. He glanced past Stan at Ginsberg, who looked even more out of place in Colorado than he was in New York. “Who’s that?”

“Dad, this is my friend Michael,” said Stan. “He’ll be helping us out while I’m here. I figured an extra pair of hands wouldn’t hurt.”

“Oh,” said Jack. “You must be the Jewish one.”

Stan wanted to clap a hand over Jack’s mouth, but Ginsberg barely reacted. He walked around them to grab the handles of the wheelchair and start pushing it out into the parking lot. “You can tell that just by looking, huh?” he said.

They put Jack in the back of the rental car, sitting sideways so his cast didn’t bump up against anything. “I’ll come back for your truck tomorrow,” Stan told him, and closed the door.

He turned to Ginsberg once he was sure his father couldn’t hear. “Sorry about that,” said Stan, and grasped for an explanation that would satisfy. He was at a loss.

“Why?” Ginsberg asked. “You weren’t the one saying it. Besides - it’s kinda like being in advertising again. Nothing I haven’t heard before.”

“I know,” said Stan. “Maybe I should’ve said something back then, too.”

Ginsberg reared away from him, eyes comically round. “What the hell is this about?” he asked. “Are you starting to grow a conscience?”

“Shut up,” said Stan. “I take it back.”

The trip to Jack’s place was quiet. Ginsberg fiddled with the radio but out here it was mostly static. In the rearview mirror Stan could see Jack nodding off, though whether that was an effect of the painkillers or his age was hard to say. He was starting to get that hollow-cheeked look some old people had.

He didn’t want to let Stan help him out but couldn’t manage his crutches; his ribs hurt every time he moved. “Might as well be pogo sticks,” he complained, as Stan and Ginsberg walked him into the house. They hadn’t been allowed to take the wheelchair with them.

“You’ll get used to it,” Stan promised.

Jack collapsed into his favorite armchair in front of the television. Stan propped his bad leg up on a footstool. “You want lunch?” he asked.

“I want a drink.”

“You can’t drink with pain meds,” said Ginsberg. “I read that somewhere.”

“I don’t recall Stan saying you were a doctor,” said Jack, but he was too tired to really fight them. Ginsberg went into the kitchen to make them toast and tomato sandwiches. By the time he got back Jack was out cold.

 

 

Jack slept for most of the rest of the day and then went to bed early that night. Later on Stan found Ginsberg sitting outside on the porch steps, wrapped in a moth-ball smelling quilt he’d liberated from one of the closets.

The air was crisp and the sky was impossibly huge, the way you never saw in a city. Ginsberg was so focused on it that he didn’t hear Stan come out.

“Stargazing?” Stan asked.

“Something like that,” Ginsberg said. “I left a glass of water by your father’s bedside, by the way. He was dead to the world.”

“You were good with him,” said Stan. He sat down next to Ginsberg and pulled the sleeves of his jacket over his hands to ward off the bite in the cold spring breeze. “Maybe you should be a nurse for your second career.”

“I’d look funny in the hat,” said Ginsberg. He rearranged his quilt, pulling it tighter; he was in his shirtsleeves underneath. “So is this where you grew up?”

“No,” said Stan. “I was a Navy brat, we moved around a lot. He hasn’t been out here that long.”

“And your Mom?” Ginsberg asked. “You’ve, uh - never really mentioned her before. Did she -”

“She passed,” said Stan. “About five years back. He doesn’t know about it.”

Ginsberg looked surprised. “Why not?”

“They broke up when I was a kid,” said Stan. “She took off. He doesn’t know I was ever in contact with her.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Well,” said Stan. He watched the sky, too, the deep blue-black of it, and wished he had a drink or at least a joint. Not that he ever would have smoked in his father’s house, even as a grown man. Jack still called it ‘reefer’ and associated it with hippie burnouts he saw on the news.

“If it helps,” said Ginsberg, very matter of fact, “my mother is also dead. All my relatives are dead, except for Morris. He’s still alive.”

Stan stared at him for at least a full minute before he turned his head and snorted with suppressed laughter. Ginsberg laughed along with him, the blanket falling off his shoulders. “What is _wrong_ with you?”

“Go to upstate New York,” Ginsberg said. “There’s a long white building that has files on that very subject.”

 

 

They stayed with Jack for two weeks. Stan cooked, brought in potatoes and canned beets from the cellar, helped him up and down the stairs. Not to the bathroom, though. When he’d tried Jack had set his jaw and said, “If I need someone to bring me to the can you might as well put me to bed with a shovel.” By the second week he was getting around competently on his crutches. He couldn’t drive - not on that leg - but they’d convinced the grocery store to make deliveries for a few extra dollars. He said his ribs didn’t hurt as bad.

Jack sent Ginsberg into town on an errand and called Stan into the kitchen. He had a stack of old envelopes on the table in front of him. They were tied with twine, and the top one was addressed to Lieutenant Junior Grade John Rizzo of Norfolk. “Sit down,” he said.

Stan did, not without hesitation. “What is it?”

“It’s time you and your friend went back home,” Jack said. “I can get around on my own well enough.”

“Okay,” said Stan. “Why the song and dance?”

Jack picked the letters up, but didn’t hand them over. “I went and got these from the attic yesterday. Haven’t thought about them in years.”

“What is it?”

Jack cleared his throat. “Charlene sent them to me while we were - courting, I guess you’d say. I suppose they might be something you want.”

“Mom?” said Stan. “But you -”

“I heard you talking about her out front that night,” said Jack. “Through the window. Michael has a voice that carries.”

“Oh,” said Stan. He scratched the back of his head, unsure. “So you know she died -”

“I already knew,” said Jack. “Your Aunt Eugenie called.”

Aunt Eugenie was Charlene’s sister. After her sudden disappearance that side of the family always acted slightly embarrassed by them, like Stan or Jack was going to accuse them of having smuggled her over the border in a suitcase. He had no idea his father kept in contact with any of them.

“Why wouldn’t you say something?” Stan asked. “Why not _tell_ me?”

“You already knew,” said Jack. “Eugenie told me when you tracked her down in the city. Or she found you; however it happened. You were an adult. Whether you spoke to your mother wasn’t any of my business.”

And that was Jack; he never talked about anything unless he had to. He let sleeping dogs lie until they were covered with cobwebs. It was so frustrating, and for a moment Stan understood how his mother must have felt, trying to have a relationship with a man who was more brick wall than human being. Trying to raise a child with him.

Jack tapped the edge of the letters against the table. “But these - they’re about all I have left of her. And if you want ‘em they should be yours. She was your mother, after everything.”

Stan looked at him. They had always resembled each other, although Jack was taller and thinner. When Stan was young he had wondered if that was why Charlene left him behind. His father’s face was worn, lined by age and the elements. He hadn’t lived easy.

It wasn’t an apology. But it was the closest Stan would get.

“Yeah,” he said. “I want them.”

 

 

Peggy was awake when he got home, though it was early. She was watching Daffy Duck cartoons in her nightgown. Her hair was all tousled from sleeping and he messed it up further when he leaned over to kiss her.

“Hey!” she said, and swatted his hands away. “How was it? Is he feeling better?”

“He’s better,” said Stan. “It was weird.”

She stood up and he hugged her. “Weird good or weird bad?”

“Just weird,” he said. The letters were in his bag. He hadn’t read them yet. “Been kind of antsy since I left. But travelling does that.”

Peggy twisted sideways in his arms and leaned back, looking into his face. “What if I said I could help you relax?”

He didn’t catch on. “What?” he asked, amused, curious to see what she would come up with.

She took a disappointing step away, but followed it up with something great. “Go get undressed and lay on the bed.”

“Oh,” he said. “So you missed me, huh?” He moved to - he didn’t know, pick her up, or chase her around the apartment, both of which made her laugh. She stopped him, one hand balling up in his shirt.

“I wasn’t kidding,” she said. Her eyes were a little bit uncertain, but her mouth was a firm line. An act, but not an act. “And I expect to be listened to.”

He could, he knew, derail this. And if he did she would never bring it up again. How had she known? How -

But he was already getting hard. All it took was her throwing an order at him in that tone of voice.

“Yes,” he said.

She put her hands on her hips. “And no touching yourself. You hear me?”

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. He stripped off as he crossed the apartment; she hadn’t specified that he had to stick to the bedroom. Then he waited for her, flat on his back, like she told him to. Throbbing between his legs. She took her sweet time.

“I didn’t pick up your clothes,” she informed him as she came in. “You’re going to do that later.” She drew the curtains shut and turned on the lamp for a softer light.

“Obviously -”

“Quiet.”

He exhaled and didn’t move. She might change her mind if he couldn’t listen. So he watched her take off her nightgown out of the corner of his eye. His girl was flushed all down her chest. She was into this as he was. The tips of her ears were bright pink; she looked like a glowy little elf. Adorable. And what she was _saying_.

“I should have given you rules before you left,” she said. “Told you to keep your hands to yourself unless I phoned and gave you permission. Did you jerk off while you were there?”

Stan closed his eyes. She wasn’t usually so frank, it was so fucking -

“Yes,” he said. “In the shower.”

“Did you think about me?”

“Well, I wasn’t thinking about Miss November.”

“No,” said Peggy, thoughtfully, and climbed on top of him in only her panties. “She’s not really your type, is she?”

“Were you planning this?” Stan asked. “Before I left?”

Peggy put her palm on the center of his chest, fingers spread. “I’m doing the asking, here. You do the answering.”

He was - he was nervous, in a way sex didn’t make him anymore. Like he was that barely-grown kid in a stranger’s hotel room again.

“Have you been with women this way before?”

“Yes.”

“Your girlfriends.”

“No,” he said. “One night stands, here and there.”

“Tell me what you like.”

He turned his head to the side, away from her. The closet needed to be refinished. “Don’t you already know?”

She cupped his jaw and made him face her. “Look at me. No, I don’t already know. I’m playing a guessing game. You need to help me out.”

“With what?”

“Details, Stan. Tell me what you like,” she repeated. “I won’t ask a third time.”

“I like being told what to do,” he said. “Forcefully. I like being tied down, or told not to move. I like, uh. I like some pain. Not whips and chains, but - spanking. With your hands or with - shit - objects. I like biting. Hair pulling. Not sure what else. I haven’t really done that much.”

She sat back, rubbing against his cock. He sighed and lifted his hips. You’d think the humiliation of having to confess would have calmed him down a little, but no. Not Stan Rizzo. If anything he was harder.

“Would a belt be too much?” she asked.

“I can take it,” he said, and that was all she needed to hear.

Peggy had him turn over and went to rummage through their drawers, looking for a suitable item. He knew it would be one of his; her belts were too thin, too likely to cut. She even tested a couple by smacking them against the dresser. His stomach went tight with anticipation every time she did.

He was hyperaware of every sensation: the cotton from the pillow brushing against his face, a cool breeze from the open window glancing along his bare skin. So much so that he jumped when she touched the small of his back.

“You still into this?” she asked. “We can stop.”

“Peggy,” he said through gritted teeth, “If you don’t hit me right now, I swear to _god_ -”

“That is the weirdest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she mused.

“I know.”

“Any tips? I’m the beginner, here.”

“Keep the buckle out of it,” he said. “Wrap the belt around your hand to make it shorter and to give yourself more control. And - just do it, Peggy, quick. _Please_.”

“Wow,” she breathed out, and brought the belt down. She’d chosen well - the leather was wide and soft, but not _too_ soft, and Stan jerked under it with a grunt.

“Good?”

“Perfect,” he said. “Keep going, come on -”

“I think I’m calling the shots here,” she said. “Better be careful or I might stop.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” he begged. He was panting from one little smack, light-headed and eager. It was better than any drug he’d ever done, more thrilling than any clandestine fuck he’d ever had. And it had been so long. “Please don’t stop.”

“Oh, Stan.” she said, warmly. “You are so damn easy.” She struck him on the other cheek, harder, and it made him whimper. She kept on hitting him, alternating sides, changing the angle. Light and then hard, so he couldn’t get used to it. So he couldn’t predict what was coming. Strokes of pain followed by an intense, stinging heat crisscrossed his ass, the backs of his thighs. He gave up trying not to flinch or make noise. She understood it wasn’t bad. She got it.

“We’re going to have so much fun.” she said. “I’ll make you wait for me at home on your knees. I’ll - I’ll call you and tell you how to get yourself ready for me -”

The blow this time was sharp and _mean_. He cried out and spurted without being touched, not coming, not quite, but fucking close -

“God,” she said, her voice cracking up. “God, Stan. Your skin is so red.”

He pulled himself together somehow. “If you want to fuck me now would be the time.”

She was already yanking her underwear off and rubbing herself, too keyed up to wait for him. He fucked her at the foot of the bed, gratefully, tenderly. She was wet and ready before he even got near her. She scrambled to get him inside, biting at his mouth.

“You loved it,” he said, “Oh god, Peggy, you _did_ -”

“I - oh -” Her eyes were fluttering shut, her pretty face twisting with tension. Coming already, Jesus, Jesus _Christ_. “Of course I did, of - oh, Stan, _Stan_.”

She scraped her nails along his backside as a parting gift and he came with his face buried in her hair, shaking. He shivered for a long time, after. She held him through it.

“Good?” she asked, and ran a soothing hand down his spine.

He nodded and wiped at his face. His eyes were watering. “I needed that.”

“Why didn’t you ask me earlier?”

“I thought you’d say no,” he said. I thought you’d hate me, he thought.

She stretched underneath him. Her half-lidded eyes told him she had no intentions of moving any time soon. “Well, I didn't.”

“No,” he said. “We’re a couple of ten carat freaks, aren’t we?”

Peggy gave him a smile that bloomed into a grin. She was entirely pleased with herself. The cat that got the canary. She got the same way after she made a killing at work; smug, self-satisfied. It was probably what made him fall in love with her in the first place. “Remember when you called me uptight?” she asked. “How wrong were _you_?”

 

 

The next day Stan spent as much time as he could standing up; he was sore enough that sitting was a distraction in more ways than one. He got a couple funny looks, but he was too happy to care. Lying down was easier - when Peggy had to work late he stayed in his own office on the couch, doodling in a sketchbook. Or he did until the phone rang.

“Can you come up here for a second?” Peggy asked.

The McCann floors were dark and deserted. It was so quiet that the ding of the arriving elevator almost echoed. Stan closed the door behind him when he arrived at Peggy’s office anyway, because there could be cleaning staff around.

“What’s up, Chief?” he asked.

She was flipping through a stack of papers. “Have a seat,” she said, without looking up.

He sat, gingerly. “Is that something I need to know about?”

“Depends,” she said, and started to read out loud. Which didn’t clear anything up - it was a financial report that Stan didn’t understand or care about. It wasn’t even for their department.

He kept shifting in his seat, uncomfortable. It was hard to focus on what she was saying. On anything but -

“Peggy,” he interrupted. “I don’t see what this has to do with me. Can I go?”

She gave him an assessing look over the top of the paper. “Not until I say so.”

_Oh_. Peggy sure as hell didn’t waste any time committing to a theme. His fingers curled around the arms of the chair and the clock ticked away on the wall, so slowly that he could have sworn it was moving backwards. It took forever for her to come out from behind the desk, by which point he was visibly hard.

She sat on the edge of the desk without acknowledging him. “A three year study of non-current assets indicates -”

When she got close enough he leaned forward and put his head in her lap. Her fingers tangled in his hair and her breath hitched.

“What did I just read to you?” she asked him. “Repeat it back to me.”

“Three year study of - some kind of asset - fuck. I don’t know.”

“You should have been paying attention,” she said, and gave his cheek a light tap.

“I should have,” he agreed. “Let me make it up to you?”

She took off one shoe, and then the other. He put them under the desk. Then he helped her peel her pantyhose and underwear down. “If you insist,’ she said, breathless, and leaned back with her thighs open. He kissed the insides of them, drinking in her sighs.

She squeaked when he buried his tongue in her. He hoped he’d get to finger her open, too, but he wouldn’t until she asked him for it. Until she gave him permission. Her hands were clenching at the back of his shirt; he brought one of them back up to his hair.

“Right,” she gasped, and pulled on it beautifully. Moving him where she wanted. He whined against her cunt, making her shudder.

His scalp ached and he was hurting from the previous night. He had never felt better.

“Good, Stan,” she said. With her other hand she groped for his. Caught it and held it. “So good. You’re exactly where you ought to be.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Credit for this idea goes to tumblr user peggy-faces. The title comes from the Velvet Underground song Venus in Furs because I am a nerd but also because Stan would certainly have heard it.


End file.
